Valve opens submissions for Skins/Sticker contest

Last night, Valve announced its second “call to Arms-ory,” a contest for creatives to submit skins to the game.

The idea of this contest is that Valve sets a theme, in this case one for skins and two for stickers, that the community can work around. The winners of the contest get their skins added to a collection of the same theme. The two new collections added to the game in the Season 5 update came from the last contest: the themes that time were Arabesque Art + Arabian Mythology and Spy/Tech.

This time the themes are:

• Fairy Tales (Weapon Skins)
• Cryptids (Stickers)
• Pop Art (Stickers)

So if you’re a creative type, get on this now. The winners don’t just get added to the game; they also get a cash prize. If you get selected, you license your skin to Valve for a flat fee. For a weapon finish, you get $35,000.00 USD, and for a sticker, $6,000.00 USD. Pretty good, right?

Info for new artists:

If you’re looking to get into making skins, this is worth knowing.

First: submit properly.

You have to submit your workshop items under a separate category, like in this screenshot:

This also applies to old submissions that fit this theme, so if you made a fairy tale skin, you can re-submit it to the workshop under the competition tag and enter.

Second, gun skins: Don’t get attached, make variants.

Valve often alters submissions, and making variants will show the versatility of your design. The AK-47 AUTOEXEC was originally submitted in several versions, and the final design in the collection was created by Valve, combining several of their color schemes into one. That's now a red rarity skin in the collection, the best honour you can get.

Third, stickers: feel free to go ham.

A sticker artist we spoke to said: “Be bold, be colorful, and push your limits.” So have fun; stickers are a canvas for your expression, you can do anything. Make some cool art that you'd like to see on your gun, or make something that'd perfect your craft. The best part is that with holo, foil, and scraping, you have so many ways to make them unique.

Fourth, and finally: Be patient.

The last contest started in December of last year and only ended on July 9th with the S5 update. So take some time, and don’t worry if a few months go by and you hear nothing. It’s still Valve.

We wish you good luck and happy creating!